 So just what are Zorro and Usopp staring at ever so intently? Well, that would obviously be the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, the pressing of which will grant you, yes, you regular One Piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. And you know, I think Usopp has the right idea by hitting it, although I am just a little bit concerned about Zorro's slicing and ruining it. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece and today we have a long way to chapter and thus a long way to chapter review of 987 Vassals of Glory. And yeah, I think we can safely say that this chapter was pretty damn hype. Following the unexpected yet phenomenal ending of last week, we are now entering total One Piece Anarchy, which is that part of the arc, where all of the weird pieces finally come together and do the impossible. It's very much reminding me of the chapter during Hawkeye Kylint, where all of the Luffy Clones popped out of the wedding cake, or Dress Rosa when the Colosseum fighters charged towards a Don Quixote family, alongside Luffy, Zorro and Law. So it's taken quite some time, but it looks like almost 80 chapters in. We are now into the classical third act of a One Piece Arc. I say looks like because yes, this is Wano and who knows how things could turn out from here, but there is so much to be excited for in chapter 987, which actually takes place primarily within one location, which is very rare for One Piece, especially in this whole Wano era. But I really don't know where else to start other than with Kaido. He was very much the through line of the chapter, having essentially three different scenes, which very much encapsulate a beginning, middle and an end. And I really liked that the chapter began with the brief flashback of Odin, or more accurately the very first panel of the chapter was Kaido's wound from Odin, and it was a very nice contrast to the first time we saw these events play out. Because back then Kaido was all arrogant and rare, quite unfeeling in general. But now we get to see these events catch up with him, and I think it's beautiful that the first panel we see of Kaido in the modern day is this look of pure shock and honestly, I would say fear. And this is Kaido like we have never seen him before. In this very brief moment, the strongest creature in the world is afraid. And he should be, which is emphasized by the wonderful shots of several vassals actually managing to penetrate his body with their blades, which Kaido seems to attribute to them using Rio. And I guess in retrospect, it shouldn't be too surprising that they know this. I mean, according to Gilgore's explanation of it, Zoro has had this ability ever since Alabasta when he cut through Mr. One. But it is cool to know that the vassals can access it as well. Mainly because I feel like the vassals are very, very underrated when it comes to combat, a lot of which spawns from the fact that we've not really seen any of them fight all that often, but also because several of them have had primarily comical roles up until this dramatic arc, and even within this dramatic arc actually. But these guys are pretty serious business, especially when they band together. But through all of this, we get to follow Kaido's train of thought, which is nice because we still have yet to really delve into this man, or this creature, the thing, whatever he is. So I very much appreciate seeing his inner thoughts and in a weird way, it's nice to see him very much sort of empathizing with Orochi, realizing that his deranged thoughts weren't just pure insanity. However, the key difference between Orochi and Kaido is on full display here, as this kind of pressure led to Orochi mentally crumbling, whilst Kaido is prepared to rise to this new challenge, which we see in his third scene in the chapter, which is by far my favorite due to this glorious panel of Kaido's dragon form, framed by a snowy moonlit landscape. Like this panel could not be more wano if it tried, it's got the eastern dragon and the moonlit snow met by a band of samurai. It is perfect, and I cannot wait to see a whole ton of talented people color it. And there's just something so weirdly exciting about seeing the vassals stand off against Kaido like this. Exciting and terrifying that is, because there is no way that this is going to go well for them. No way at all. I mean, it is all good and well to have this nicely set up revenge moment, but with characters like Luffy and Yamato currently not in the main thrust of action, it's difficult to see this ending in any way other than pure tragedy. And if anything, this chapter is only sounding the alarms more and more in my head for a certain Kinomon. And that's because he had some pretty great stuff in chapter 987 actually, especially when he gave his equivalent of the pirate king speech. You know that thing we see the straw hats and their allies state about Luffy from time to time. But Kinomon looked Kaido dead in the eyes with his profound belief in Luffy, but then he also went on to casually flag the prospect of each and every one of them dying. Everyone but Luffy that is, which is mildly concerning because no, I don't think all of the vassals will die, but it does make me fear for Kinomon individually. Whilst he also had a very nice moment of hitching a ride on Kaido and briefly addressing Luffy with a smile on his face and just wouldn't this be a most gut-wrenching final interaction in retrospect? And I know I'm probably reading into this way too much. That's just what I do. But if there was going to be another grand tragedy on Wano, then I would say that Kinomon is very much set up to be the figure who bites that bullet. But before we move away from the vassals, the last panel of this chapter is absolutely fear inducing. It's like stepping into Alice in Wonderland and coming across a Cheshire cat who could rip you to pieces in an instant because this kitty cat is about to turn Sulong, and I just don't know what to expect from that. Nekomomushi was already a large towering power cat, and if Sulong becomes anything to go by, then we are in for a real treat here. Not just with Nekomomushi either, but with the revelation of all of the minks lying in wait, which shows some pretty incredible planning actually. They basically lured Kaido into a vulnerable moonlit spot. And we are about to see a whole band of very real monsters on Onigashima, and I'm really hoping for a potential spread with all of the Sulong minks, either charging at or attacking Kaido in the same way that the vassals did. But this is definitely a big game changer, and probably what I am most excited to hopefully see from the next chapter. It might not necessarily be the next chapter though, we could skip it and come back to this event later as Oda often does, but Sulong Ming tribe incoming. And this chapter is incredibly packed with other interactions though, a lot of which I would refer to as mounting chaos. Like there's no real development or grand progression in things like seeing Kyo Goro in the samurai reveal themselves, but there is a very satisfying sense of seeing the antagonists practically shit themselves when they realize all of the information that we as readers already know. And definitely the greatest example of this would be Queen who does his trademark shock face when the accurate reporting gets through to him. And man do I love Queen, the more I see him the more I realize just how integral he is to breaking up the flow of the Beast Pirates. Some people do hate this about One Piece, but there is always an inherent goofiness present somewhere in a band of main antagonists. There's a whole argument to be made that makes it difficult to take them seriously, especially at this kind of level, but I am much more in favor of this brand of goofiness than not. Queen is pretty much the sole reason why the Beast Pirates are not just this monolithic entity of silent brooding. I mean Kaido, King and Jack are all quite heavy hitters, who we haven't really gotten to know at all, and it would just be the epitome of boring for Queen to be the exact same character as well. So I continue to be really glad that Oda has once again gone all out weird with someone in Queen's position. Queen's reaction is followed by a series of four very fun panels though that kind of mirror the trio of panels I loved from the last chapter, being the ones of Zoro, Kit and Law. They were all showcased in more or less a close-up of their own, whilst in this chapter Oda very specifically zooms out and shows that each and every one of them now have one or allies fighting alongside them, and this comes with a huge sigh of relief, because Zoro and Kit in particular looked a bit tired and bloodied in 986, but here the two of them look like they are back in peak condition, and it's a cool yet subtle way of showing that the tides are indeed beginning to turn on Onigashima. One thing I am quite interested about in Law's panel is whoever this person is with the long hair, because my initial reaction was, wait is that Basil Hawkins? And that made me realize that we haven't actually seen Hawkins in Act 3 yet, which is a bit weird, given he was such a major aspect of Act 1 and 2. We have had a lot of Drake and a lot of Apu, which has been nice, but no Hawkins. So this is probably just me wishfully thinking. You know catching a glimpse of light long hair and reading some great meaning into it, or forgetting about a character that may have already been with Law, but it does make me incredibly curious as to what Hawkins is actually up to right now. But joining this trio is a very understated fourth panel, featuring what would appear to be the most ambitious crossover of 2020, with Marco the Phoenix and Charlotte Perespero. Very much indicating that Perespero was the strange shadow that Marco saw earlier. And I can only assume that they have temporarily joined forces because Perespero, of course, does not approve of this whole Kaido Alliance business, and may very much be attempting to intentionally sabotage it. In which case we now have a most unexpected ally in this Candyman. Not at all unwelcome, but definitely unexpected. And as for other major events, there's a fair bit of Yamato in this chapter, very casual Yamato, mind you, with a lot of very neutral faces actually. Which given the things that Yamato is saying is kind of crazy, but also kind of cool. I did like the verbal confrontation with Ulty, but I do like most things featuring Ulty. But this definitely was just not a chapter geared at having Yamato shine. And the whole scene very much immediately got stored away in the back of my mind, in favor of some of the other insane events happening right next to it actually. Like Luffy speaking to Big Mom is always fun. They have such a neat dynamic because both of them are just overgrown children, so they tend to confront each other in very straightforward and almost pure ways. Which eventually culminates in Luffy just claiming that he's here to beat everyone. But it was also a great subtle callback to their interaction on Hawkeek Island, when Luffy initially claimed that he was going to beat Kaido, and I mean it feels like an eternity ago that that hall mess happened, and while Luffy still has not made good on their words, we are still seeing them in action right here right now, which is quite satisfying. I very much enjoy little connective moments like these that tell their own story. And there is also a brief scene of Nami and Karat in this chapter which I only mention, because if I don't then the comment section will be full of you forgot Nami and Karats, but just to be clear, if I don't mention something in a chapter review, remember it's a review, not a recap, it's not that I forgot about it, it's because I didn't think it was worth mentioning. And this is one of those cases. Nami and Karat escaped using typical Nami and Karat methods, and that's literally it. It's nothing really exciting to talk about. But you know what is exciting? Color spread, because we have yet another amazing spread this week featuring the entirety of the straw hats, and when I say entirety, yes, I do mean Jinbei, and he is my definite highlight of this. There are still so few official images in existence that display him as a proud member of the crew, and I love the combination of colors that he was given with the Aqua Jinbei and the Midnight Blue Cape. It's a nice hue effect, especially when combined with Jinbei's natural light blue, but the great contrast comes from the, uh, I think what I can only describe as polar bearfish? They're all over the Jinbei, they're really adorable, and I love the detail. In fact, detail is the name of the game in this particular color spread, clothing detail specifically. There's a lot of fun, crazy patterns, with one that took my attention immediately being Sanji's button-up shirt, which suits him pretty fantastically, actually, and I could actually see him wearing this in the series. Then we also have Luffy, though, who is wearing a shirt that very much calls back to the days of Dress Rosa, being covered in pineapples, that is. However, in this case, it's very black, gray, and blue affair, which are very interesting choices for Luffy, because it really does abandon his classical bright warm and vibrant color scheme. It makes Luffy look a lot more sleek and mature than usual, and I do tend to enjoy any time that he wears darker colors, which is very rare and often on non-canon occasions, like the one-piece films. Frankie is also probably worth mentioning because I just want to know what he's looking at. Kind of looks like he's just staring at his massive fist and going, yeah, that's my fist. And very interestingly, we also have Robin kind of like cupping his face, which made the Frabben fanbase go wild. Gives me some very strong JoJo vibes, though. It looks like a pose that Hirohiko Araki would have seen in some kind of fashion magazine and then just adapted for his characters. And I'd also like to note a very simple but very effective artistic device employed by Oda here, which is directional gaze. For the most part, the straw hats are all looking in the direction that corresponds to their placement on the spread, which creates this really nice balanced cohesion. Whereas if we had, say, Jinbei looking right and Zoro looking left, then everything would just become a giant mess, which is a device that also gets purposely used in more chaotic color spreads, by the way. So it can be used both ways. But of course, there is an exception that proves the rule here with Chopper looking at Nami. But because this is the only time this occurs in the image, it actually becomes a focal point framed by everyone else staring off into the distance. And I'd also like to point out the weirdness here in that this looks like a pug sitting on a pug sitting on top of a gigantic pug. So there's quite a lot of a pugception happening in this spread. And that pretty much does it for chapter 987. But what do you guys think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. 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